Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Since the day I first saw +James August Walls's Kid Friendly mashup of Disney Infinity and Skylanders for the Savage Worlds role playing game, I have been inspired to work on more content that I can share with my twin daughters History and Mystery. No longer am I satisfied with sessions of Candyland or Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game, though I very much still enjoy playing those with the girls, now I want to design adventures that will turn them into full fledged game enthusiasts.

The other day, I posted the beginnings of a Frostgrave inspired rules set that I plan on playing with the girls. The rules are simple, and different from Frostgrave, and I think that they will make for a good basis for game play. Over the next few weeks, when I'm not posting about other things, reading for my qualifying exams, or working, I'll be posting articles in the Disney's Frostlanders series. Initially, these articles will feature character conversions for my kid friendly miniatures rules and James' simplified Savage Worlds rules.

One key thing to keep in mind for these conversions is that they are going to be conversions of the characters in the game and not in other source material. I sort of broke this rule with the Captain America that I published yesterday, giving him leadership powers that fit the comic character, but these adaptation articles will tend to avoid that trap. I'm not trying to make the "perfect" conversion of the characters, I'm trying to make a fun to play conversion of how the character plays in the emulated video game.

For today's conversion, I'd like to focus on the Disney Infinity 2.0 version of Captain America.

Captain America has no special movement powers, so his movement will be at the default level for each game system.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

6

6

Melee

Watching the video, it looks like Captain America is a highly skilled combatant in Disney Infinity and so in the Frostlanders system I will be giving him a Melee Attack value that is close to the maximum of +4 (keeping in mind that "powers" can add to damage later for other characters). There are few characters more skilled in combat than Cap, but I am going to leave room for the possibility and for there to be room for players of Cap to have the character "grow" with experience. Keeping these things in mind, I'm giving Captain America a +3 in Melee in Disney's Frostlanders. In +James August Walls ' Savage Skylander Skirmish, it looks like he uses "Agility" as the Melee and Ranged Stat and has given Merida a d12 in that Stat. I'm going to be a little more critical in my assessment, and give Cap a d10 Melee stat. This gives us the following.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

+3

d10/Parry: 7

Ranged

Given how skilled Captain America is with throwing his shield, and how well that is represented in the video, we will need to give him a decent ranged attack. He's no Hawkeye, and thus no Merida, and I'd like to leave him room for character growth later, so I'll give him a +2 in FrostLanders and a d8 in Savage Skylanders.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

+2

d8

Armor/Toughness

Captain America is wearing what looks like leather armor and is bearing a shield. In FrostGrave, leather armor adds +1 to Toughness and a Shield adds another +1 but Caps shield is special so we'll give him an additional +1 for a total of 8 Armor. Given our lower damage swing, d12 based damage instead of d20 in FrostGrave, this is a pretty good value. In Savage Worlds a Toughness of 8 is pretty substantial, more so in this adaptation since our simplified version of the game will default to the Melee stat with a bonus for weapon/strength. The "Hulk" in our simplified system would have a power reflecting higher strength and not a stat. Cap's shield will add to damage (1d6), so he'd be able to hurt someone with a similar Toughness. We'll give him 8 in both systems, especially since most ranged attacks will be 1d6 added to the Ranged attack value. We aren't going to be as granular as even James' simplified system. All Energy Blasts/Ranged Attacks will do (Ranged Stat) + 1d6 damage. Cap's tough, but hurtable.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

8

8

Willpower
We are given no evidence that Captain America has above normal Willpower in Disney Infinity, but he does seem brave. We'll give him a +1 and a d8 Spirit in Savage Skylanders.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

+1

d8

Health

He should also have a mid-range Health value somewhere between 12 and 16. Cap is a tough combatant, but he's no Hulk. Vigor is used to test for recovering from being Shaken in Savage Worlds and Captain America doesn't appear to get stunned very easily. James gave Stitch and Baymax d8 Vigor ratings and I think those are fine, this seems even more accurate after the recent change to the Shaken rules in official Savage Worlds products.

Statistic

FrostLanders

Savage Skylanders

14

d8

Parry?

I've listed the "Parry" Statistic under Melee since that attribute only matters in Savage Skylanders. Captain America has a 7.

Powers

This is where things get a little interesting. Captain America seems to have a couple of key powers in the Disney Infinity game. He has the ability to "charge" his attack, he has a regular ranged attack, and he has an area shield "explosion" attack.

I think that pretty much covers this adaptation of Captain America based solely on the video. I've added a couple of other powers to my skirmish game "non-Infinity" Cap, but that one lacks the Shield Explosion power.